Ephemeral
by 3C
Summary: Weeks after his victory against the Elite Four and Lance, the Champion Ethan beat the Pokemon Trainer Red while on his quest to complete his Pokedex. Years after that, Red defeats a secret organization. And in a dank cage of one of their experimental facilities, he finds a familiar Typhlosion curled up around a baseball cap. What has happened since then? And where is Ethan?
1. Prologue

_Notes:_

1\. The story actually starts with Chapter 1, so if you aren't interested in the prologue establishing how Cynders and Ethan meet, feel free to skip ahead.

2\. In addition, the prologue and chapter 1 were written all the way in 2011. Their writing styles differ, as will my current ones. This story is for me to learn how to write a plot, and learn how to do good storytelling while I'm at it.

* * *

 **Ephemeral**

* * *

 _Prologue_

Ethan remembers. He's very good at remembering. Sometimes, when his mom forgets a number as she's adding up bills at the kitchen table, Ethan, who is watching TV, will pipe up and say it because he remembers the last amount she said aloud before she'd added another to the total. She majored in math in university, she told him once, when the teacher taught Ethan's class how to add and subtract and he couldn't get the hang of it. Because Ethan remembers that too, he beams when her smile is delighted because she's proud that he's good with numbers too.

It runs in the family, she says, and then doesn't say anything more for a second.

At first he doesn't understand it, doesn't get it, and doesn't catch onto it. Gradually, though, over the years, he notices how her smile dwindles and he asks her what's wrong. He's told that nothing's wrong, but since Ethan remembers things, he learns not to brush the topic of 'family', and the word 'dad' is out of the equation entirely.

If there's anything Ethan doesn't really know much about, it's his dad, and if there's anything his mom doesn't want to talk about, it's his dad too.

He thinks of it with an equality sign: One plus one equals two; therefore, his dad plus his mom equals Ethan plus his mom, because his dad's not around anymore to be the three. The math works out, so Ethan doesn't say a word more about his calculation, and instead keeps it to himself and in the back of his head. It's hard enough to remember things, but even harder to forget them, after all.

It makes sense, then, that Ethan remembers the day he turns ten will be the day he's going to go out and explore the world. To him, it makes sense. On TV, there are all sorts of adventures playing on. He likes watching the Pokemon Rangers in their quest to defend nature with their Pokemon by their sides, but he wants to see what else is there.

It's cool, to have a Pokemon. He knows because Lyra got one last year, and it's like a second best friend, with Lyra being his first.

His mom always answers the question of, "Can I have a Pokemon?" with a smile that Ethan can never really understand the meaning of.

"Wait until you're ten," she tells him. She's always telling it to him, and sometimes she's absentminded, so Ethan reminds her the day before his birthday, hours before the clock will beep to twelve, and even more hours before he'll get his first Pokemon, as soon as he gets up.

"You'll be ten already?" She asks, surprised, and then laughs at his excitement. "Are you going to stay over at Lyra's house tonight?"

"Of course!" he chirps, chewing down his breakfast like he's been fasting, between bits of food.

They grew up together, so they know the 'ins and the outs' as Lyra's mom says all the time – especially when Ethan pops into Lyra's house right after breakfast—but Ethan knows they know each other a lot better than that.

Sometimes, when there's nothing to do, they'll sneak into each other's rooms and sleep there for the night or have impromptu sleepovers. Sometimes, they'll watch shows together and talk about what's real and what isn't late into the night. Sometimes, he and Lyra will visit Professor Elm and ask all sorts of questions about the Pokemon. And sometimes, they just play video games all day long, and then Pretend; though lately, Lyra's been going her own way now and Ethan sort of, kind of, maybe misses her.

He asks Lyra why she won't get a starter or leave town – she's old enough – but really, he's kind of happy when she says she'll do it at the same time he does. They do things together, after all, and he doesn't think he'd like it all that much if she wasn't there.

Still, Ethan doesn't do the silly girly stuff that Lyra does like picking out baby names because the Pokemon isn't a baby, but he likes playing with her Marill enough to know that he'd like one of his own and that no matter if he messes up the name, it'll be the name _he_ gave it, and it's going to be the best ever. He dreams of the day he can proudly show Lyra his own Pokemon, when all four of them can finally play together, and it'll be like never growing up.

"Which one are you going to get?" Lyra asks him, the night before his tenth birthday, when they're sleeping over in her room. Ethan's in his old, worn sleeping bag that he has yet to outgrow, and she's on her bed beside him, tucked behind a warm quilt with Marill slumbering right beside her. She crawls over to the edge of the bed to peer down at him, eyes particularly shining.

"Cyndaquil!" He says immediately, with a big goofy grin that can barely be seen in the dark. "Lyra, when I get my Pokemon, do you want to battle?"

Lyra studies him, and sighs almost in disbelief. "You know Marill's a water type, right?"

"So?"

"Cyndaquil is a fire type."

She lets the implication slide in, and when it does, Ethan's grin is lost.

"Oh." He says, chastened, disheartened, in a very quiet voice.

"Ethan?" Lyra asks, and gently reaches down and threads their fingers together, swinging them back and forth. "You okay?"

"Can't we play together anymore, Lyra?" he asks. "I want to battle with you."

"It doesn't mean we can't," she says.

"But water beats fire."

"Silly," She admonishes him, "You'll just have to get a Grass-type Pokemon if you want the type advantage."

He stops the swinging. "But I don't _want_ a Chikorita! I want a Cyndaquil! And I want all of us to play together!"

"I didn't say you couldn't." Her voice, fond, wafts sleepily over from the side of the bed. She pulls her pillow closer to the edge so that their fingers don't have to let go and can just hang. "I guess we'll have to be careful, then. It'll be fun."

She's half-asleep when Ethan pipes up again.

"Lyra?"

"Mm?"

"You promise?"

"Of course."

"Okay."

It's always weird, though, after that kind of conversation. Ethan doesn't know why. But he likes it, Lyra's warmth seeping through his fingers, and falls asleep clutching at it. The next morning, he'll wake up curled into a ball both fingers latched onto hers, and Lyra will be sleeping late like she always does instead of waking up at the crack of dawn with him to watch the sun rise from her window.

When it's eight o'clock, Ethan can't wait anymore, not even for her, he gets up.

"Lyra, we're going to be late."

"Mm."

"Lyra, you're not going to get a Pokemon!"

"Mm."

" _Lyra_!"

"Go get one first," Lyra mumbles into her pillow.

"But you won't get to pick anything! What if all of them are taken?"

"Don't worry. I don't mind which one I get."

Ethan has a good memory, though. So he remembers telling her she'd better keep her word and making her pinky promise on it, and then leaps down the stairs and out the door.

This day is a day Ethan's never going to forget. From the day the Professor hands over the pokeball to him, that Ethan throws it open, and out of its depths comes a red light and a small bundle.

"That's a Cyndaquil," Professor Elm says, but Ethan's not listening.

"Hi!" he almost whispers, and his voice is lost in wonder.

The little bundle quivers slightly.

"Hi," he says again, and crouches down. He can't stop himself. He's reaching a hand out to stroke it-it's not smooth skin like he thought. It's some kind of fur, but it feels so soft under his fingers. He pets it, over and over again, the excitement that's been kept in for so long just tying knots in itself in his stomach.

Ethan feels like he can't breathe, as the moment he's been dreaming about time and again comes to pass.

That small little bundle sort of slowly uncurls itself, from a little lump to a little lump with a head, a smooth face, and teeny arms and fat legs and equally small feet. It's strangely adorable, little and tiny, and tilts its head slightly at him in wonder.

Ethan imagines he looks pretty big from such a small perspective, and is determined to make it not so scary.

Later on the road, when he's older and when he knows things and has experienced them enough to be able to recognize it, he'll know it was buddies-on-sight, because you can only really have love-on-sight in the movies and not in real life Lyra said. But for now, he's thrilled at having his very own Pokemon, his very own best buddy like Lyra has, and he can't wait to get started on his own adventure out there.

"I'm Ethan, nice to meet you!"


	2. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1_

It was cold like an ivory tower in the midst of winter, with no fires to keep you warm. Not the most ideal place for a vacation, but when you'd been training in solitude up a mountain in a cave for a very long time, cold had a very skewed definition.

Red rolled his shoulders back.

Pikachu twitched his nose but didn't move from where he rested half over Red's head, half on one of Red's shoulders.

It was good, Red thought, that even now, they were one and the same, halves of a whole. He couldn't have imagined a life without his constant companion. There was just something very reassuring about having Pikachu by his side, as always was.

" _Chu_!"

Down went another member, who scuttled away as though lambasted by his own mother.

Pikachu let out a satisfied noise, and then climbed back up to Red's shoulder, uninjured and brimming with impatience.

The two of them wandered up the stairs, leaving a trail of distressed operatives behind them. Red's pokeballs lined neatly on his belt as they'd always been, though with the dropping temperatures as they headed up, it seemed like an ideal training area. He made a note to come back later, but for now, he'd do as he pleased.

The door swung open with the card key he'd won from the executive, though it took several more codes to bypass the main security vault. Red had no idea what was so valuable, but he supposed he would find out.

It was the smell that hit him first of all. Like putrid rotting flesh, it curled around his nose and threatened to suffocate him. Red fought the urge to gag, whereas Pikachu, with the more sensitive nose, made a small whine at the back of his throat, and buried his face into the crook of Red's shoulder.

Red's hand reached around until he could hit a light-switch. Once hit, the lights above flickered before turning on completely, at which point the next one did the same, until it repeated for over an entire row of the house.

What he saw alarmed him. Cages, so many of them, lined the floor, connected to some kind of observatory, and as well, each area had a small control panel before it. The lights weren't perfect—they only lit the walkway, while the cages were lined in neat little rows, like prison cells, side by side.

He checked the first one. It was empty, but it showed signs of having been lived in recently. Red wondered where the Pokemon inside of it had gone, but dismissed it, and the feeling in his stomach. It wouldn't do to linger.

The second and third cages yielded no results to his relief, but Red could no more stop the gnawing feeling of dread in his stomach than he could stop the anticipation of a good opponent during a Pokemon battle.

Nearing the fourth cage caused some huge, bulky mass in the half-enshrouded darkness to suddenly jerk forward and slam against the cages. To say Red was surprised in the least was an understatement. He jolted, but otherwise didn't say word.

From the inadequate lighting overhead, he could pick out red eyes looking out at him in the darkness. Pikachu had long since leapt off his shoulder. Now, the electric mouse pokemon was drawing closer to the cage, nose twitching, making little sounds in his throat.

Red felt like a blind man seeing the light as his eyes adjusted, and his mind filled in what else he hadn't seen before.

The weak ring of fire bursting slightly and pulsing against the Pokemon's neck was more than enough of a clue to its identity.

"A Typhlosion?" He murmured.

It turned out that the Typhlosion was severely injured, and ill with infection from what appeared to be several wounds inflicted by all sorts of Pokemon types, and as well as some artificial means as well. Red couldn't get near enough to administer an Antidote or a Max Potion without the threat of losing his entire arm or leg, but Pikachu was able to calm it down with some docile tones.

Despite everything, it wouldn't let them near where it was curled up around something. Red tried to use Flash, but to no avail. There was a howl of rage and then Typhlosion let out something that smelled like smoke and charred dust from its throat, before it heaved out what appeared to be something disgusting that could melt through the bars of its cage.

If it could do that, Red wondered, why bother staying?

Fire Pokemon to Fire Pokemon ought to have done it. It would make sense, being that they both could breathe fire and were both formidable in a fight. Charizard was actually quite reliable despite his initial temper, but the two of them had long established a trust. However, nothing worked.

No matter how long they waited or how nicely Pikachu asked or how annoyed Charizard was at this whole thing, the Typhlosion refused to talk. It refused to give reason of any sort why it wouldn't leave the cage, why even shivering with half of its skin melted off by something that shouldn't have been capable of melting off skin because it was a Fire Pokemon and they were supposed to have the damage cut in half by Fire-type moves.

"Should we move on?" Red asked Pikachu. His long-time companion shook his head. "Alright."

They did have enough food and water to last them a while, but Red didn't like the look of this place. For one, it wasn't sanitary. For another, it gave off a foul smell almost like burnt things and rotten eggs. Charizard could blow away the air with hits, but there was nowhere for the worse parts of the smell to go. No windows, no anything. Just complete darkness and cages, flickering lights and a sense of foreboding claustrophobia, like the walls would close in and the darkness would swallow them whole. If they stayed for a while, he did have an Escape rope, but coming back here would be a pain.

Red left Charizard behind with the now unmoving but still breathing Fire Pokemon, while he and Pikachu set about exploring the rest of the room. Flash was very useful for things like this, but asides from an Ultra ball someone carelessly left behind and some Golbats still lingering about, along with several Geodudes in hiding, there wasn't much to look forward to. They let him be once he turned off the light, and it was just Pikachu helping to lead the way.

The Typhlosion turned out to be the only Pokemon in the room still caged, and other cage bars left traces that they two had been melted open. Red stared, and traced the now molten cold metal with his fingers. Whatever on earth had gone in this room?

From the remains of the data that was left in each control panel and accompanying screen, there were several types of Fire Pokemon in here, all in their final stages of Evolution. It seemed as though they were testing for something, but eventually, perhaps from neglect, the experiments stopped and the Pokemon eventually freed themselves.

He found a switch. With a sudden buzz, a generator flipped on and electricity was now coursing through the circuits. The light jolted on, and to Red's horror, every cage lit up in electricity.

There was a howl in the air. Racing back there revealed that the Typhlosion was now curled further into the center of the cage, whereas Charizard was nursing his tail. Evidently he'd been trying to goad the other Pokemon, so it served him right, but there wasn't much anything an aside from returning Charizard to his pokeball that Red could do for him now. The Typhlosion wasn't leaving, but then the light revealed just how bad his state was.

Red couldn't believe such a Pokemon was still alive. What was keeping it there, still hanging on?

"We need to cut the circuit," he began, but Pikachu was already at it. It leapt at the cage, hoping to short it out with a good shock—

 _Blzaatt!_

Red caught Pikachu just as his old friend nearly was jolted out of his life. The electricity was inhumanely and extremely powerful, so much so that an electric mouse Pokemon like Pikachu couldn't handle it. It was beyond ridiculous.

"We're cutting the power," Red said darkly, and turned to Charizard.

There didn't need to be any spoken words. Charizard let out a roar and Blast Burned the side of the cage. It went out with a flash, and then molten lava drifted away and slowly hardened on the floor.

So that was how the other Pokemon escaped, Red realized. They burned each other's cage—there must have been a weak link somewhere for the first one—so then, why was it that none of them had helped this Typhlosion?

Nearing the Typhlosion proved to be hazardous. He wouldn't let Red come near at all for any reason, and there was nothing Pikachu could say or do that would make it move.

Red wondered why it was that it was curled into a ball. Surely standing would've been easier, or at least lying on its side? So why was it-?

Wait.

Was that-?

He caught a glimpse of a baseball cap and his fingers tightened.

"Ethan-?"

The Typhlosion looked up, eyes tired, half-crazed but hopeful.

"You're Ethan's," Red realized. "You're Cynders."


End file.
